A First Morning
by gosalyngirl
Summary: A short story. Drake and Gosalyn's first Saturday together, immediately after the battle with Taurus Bulba. A lot of symbolism, cute.


4

A short story. The setting is a Saturday morning of the first week Gosalyn and Drake are together. There is deep symbolism present; I feel that Drake and Gosalyn deserve no less. Enjoy.

_**A First Morning**_

Drake rolled over with a groan.

The rustling downstairs disturbed his attempts to subdue his restless anxiety, his internal torment. He rolled out of bed and forced himself to fall off, throwing his feet and hitting the floor. The action emitted a thud padded by his innate stealth. He stretched his spine and looked in the mirror. He looked like hell, he thought. And he was just being nice to himself. His grey tee shirt and blue-plaid pajama pants clung to his thin frame desperately. His right arm was still in a cast and his right eye was still black. Those wounds were all that existed from his fight up on the top of Beakman skyscraper. Of course that, and his new daughter, all were small glimpses into a new life he had hurled himself in to. He looked in the dresser mirror. A thin, worn, young man stared back at him, enveloped by a sparsely decorated bedroom emblazoned with white walls. Most of the time life happened to people, yet with him it was different. He happened to life and it seemed to be hanging on with nothing but a prayer.

Drake stumbled out of his bedroom. He padded across the carpet of the landing and peered into a separate bedroom. An empty bed, ravaged by the vestiges of a kicking and tumbling child, was all that stared back at him. A few small boxes lay around the room; she didn't have much to bring with her. The biggest amount of luggage was she herself. He scanned the room with his eyes. Her walls were green. Her eyes were green. His were blue. Drake yawned and shook his head to wake himself.

He padded down the stair case and looked leftward. The living room was uninhabited. He hit the first floor and through a partial process of elimination he ascertained where the only other living soul existed in the house was located. He pushed through the swinging door.

She sat on the breakfast bar, reading a magazine. Further commitment to the kitchen and he saw that it was a comic book. Blood Zombies from Neptune, or something like that. Something grotesquely inappropriate for breakfast time. He shook his head and gave a small smile.

She looked up at him as he walked in to the kitchen. She gave him a curious look; it was the first time she'd ever seen him in his pajamas. Earlier in the week he was asleep or was Darkwing whenever she was preparing for school. He shook his head. How odd to put Darkwing Duck and elementary school together.

The coffee pot sputtered and gave an acknowledging beep. He saw a coffee mug sitting beside of it.

"Is this for me or are you a coffee drinker?" He asked.

"For you. I hate the stuff. Tastes like a fat, green stink bug." She returned.

He nodded, thought it interesting how she managed to connect those two things. He poured a cup and with it came coffee grounds. He raised the pot above eye level and peered into it, the light from the window filtering through it on the other side. The bottom of the pot was black. He blinked as he sat it back onto the stand. He opened the compartment that held the coffee filter. There was no coffee filter. The grounds fell through along with the water.

Drake opened his mouth to tell her, but thought against it. He took a hesitant drink and found the coffee to taste like coffee, with the exception of the solid pieces of coffee bean that floated in it. He shrugged, it was better than nothing.

He took a seat across from her. The comic was sitting beside a bowl. She had already enjoyed a bowl of Frosty O's this morning. Sitting central on the table was a plate of toast. Margarine and jelly perched beside it.

"I made toast." She didn't immediately look at him and eventually her eyes rolled up to where his was. Those Blood Zombies must be kicking ass, he thought.

"I see." He responded. She commenced her reading.

Drake took another sip of his coffee. He looked at the plate of toast once his mind alerted him to the abnormality. His head cocked to one side in thought. Slowly, as if reaching to pet a growling dog, he stretched forth and returned with a piece of toast. The left bottom corner was bitten out of it. He held it up to the light as he did the coffee pot; a small half-moon bite made the toast no longer symmetric. If one were to slice it in half the left side would be severely limited against competition from the right side.

The rest of the slices of toast lay disfigured on the left.

"Uh, Gos…and I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but I feel compelled to ask…why are all the left bottom corners bitten off?"

Gosalyn didn't even look up from her reading. "Because if I didn't do it no one would."

Drake heard her and his lips parted to answer. He just couldn't bring himself to ask. "Oh. Well…I…guess that is true."

The kitchen fell silent. He heard one car drive by and it was odd because in the tower he could hear hundreds a day do so.

"But…why is it important that the left bottom side is missing?" Drake broke a silence that was extremely comfortable and he regretted doing so. He found himself wondering how many more inquiries he would have to make to her before he got this parenting thing right.

She awarded him with her full attention. "Well, why would you want your toast looking like everyone else's, Drake?"

He was still holding the stiff slice of bread up, his elbow providing the foundation against the breakfast table.

He looked at the piece, studied it. He held it up and looked at her through it. She reached forward and took it from him.

"Look at this," She said as she rotated the slice one hundred eighty degrees and slid it back into his fingers. "If you would rather have the right bottom corner off, you just have to turn it. That's why I didn't put any butter and jelly on them. I wanted you to have the option."

Drake studied her and then the toast. He mouth was opened a little bit; his brow was furrowed in intense concentration. He could have grasped a complex equation involving statistical analysis had it been laid out in front of him, but not this. Not toast.

She watched him watch her. Her eyes were green. Just like her bedroom. He was a father now. And because of it his toast was going to be deprived of a left bottom corner. Or a right, if he so chose. She gave him that option.

He broke the silence again. "I am very glad you're here, Gos."

She seemed satisfied with that. "I'm glad you're here too."

Copyright 12/24/06 Lesley Hall. The two characters and the setting are copyright Disney and used for entertainment purposes only, not for profit.


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